


you run my mind, boy

by getmean



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Drunken Confessions, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Post-Canon, Reunions, Yearning, all that good stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 17:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11651622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: New Orleans was a riot of colours, sounds and smells. With Snafu pressed tight to his side Eugene felt safer, the humid air making him feel dizzy and sticky and out of his body. He’d worn his nice shirt, which was stupid, in retrospect. Snafu gestured broadly with his cigarette, and Eugene watched the ash drift through the air in front of them in a daze. Snafu was definitely not wearinghisbest shirt. Off-white and ragged around the collar, unbuttoned to his sternum and pulled askew by a pair of black suspenders. Eugene wanted to slip his thumbs under the elastic and tug them away, showcase skinny shoulders and the dark copper glow of Snafu’s summer-sweat skin.





	you run my mind, boy

Eugene turned up on Snafu’s doorstep just as the sun was lowering in the sky, and by the time it was set they were weaving over the cobbles of Frenchmen Street in search of good jazz and cheap alcohol. Snafu’s arm around his shoulders, hand digging into the side of his neck every time he stumbled over the uneven ground, a grin on his face. Eugene felt a heaviness in his chest that he couldn’t put an emotion to, but felt close to anticipation.

New Orleans was a riot of colours, sounds and smells. With Snafu pressed tight to his side Eugene felt safer, the humid air making him feel dizzy and sticky and out of his body. He’d worn his nice shirt, which was stupid, in retrospect. Snafu gestured broadly with his cigarette, and Eugene watched the ash drift through the air in front of them in a daze. Snafu was definitely not wearing _his_ best shirt. Off-white and ragged around the collar, unbuttoned to his sternum and pulled askew by a pair of black suspenders. Eugene wanted to slip his thumbs under the elastic and tug them away, showcase skinny shoulders and the dark copper glow of Snafu’s summer-sweat skin.

“Five _goddamn_ years.” Snafu crowed into the night, and then stopped dead in the street to shake Eugene by the front of his shirt. He was drunk, the apples of his cheeks pink and his grin sliding sideways off his face. “Gene, you been quiet so long I thought you were gone for good.”

Eugene didn’t know how to tell Snafu that he’d thought the same, so he settled for clapping him on the back and leaning close to say, “I came for the jazz, Snaf.”

He wondered if the people around them could see the love on his face, but then Snafu was tugging him into a bar before he had time to check. It felt like those halos he’d seen in church, a bright yellow disc around him, clear for anyone to see. So much love that it could only emanate outwards, his body too narrow to hold it all inside.

The bar was smoky and crowded, low ceilings and that sharp smell of cheap liquor. The band were jammed in the corner of the room, the music slow and blue and loud in the small space that Snafu led the way through like a cat, sure footed and confident. Eugene followed, trying not to let himself get swallowed up by the swarm of unfamiliar faces around him and only half succeeding. It took Snafu’s hand on the small of his back to get him close to the bar, and then a drink was pressed into his hand, and Snafu was laughing at the face he pulled as he took a sip.

“Only the finest, mon cher.” Snafu purred, so close to his ear that Eugene flinched back like he’d been burned. Snafu’s answering grin was almost mocking through the low light, but his hand was curved around Eugene’s hip now, and neither of them made any move to change that. Again, Eugene felt that heavy pulse of anticipation go through him. The dim lights winked off of the thin chain strung around Snafu’s neck, and Eugene followed it down, down into the shadowy dip of his open shirt and the skin beyond. Their drinks were sweating in the hot room, and Eugene watched as Snafu turned his head to lick the water from the side of his hand. The moment stretched, hazy, and then Eugene snapped his gaze away and took a gulp of his vile drink (paint stripper masquerading as bourbon) to centre himself.

“You gotta smoke?” He asked, half-yelling over the music, and Snafu shook his pack at him. 

Eugene wondered if Snafu had brought him to this loud, close bar as an attempt to keep him from talking to him. Snafu was never one for a light conversation, let alone a serious one. No talk of the war, or of anxiety and longing and abandonment, was going to happen tonight. Eugene took a pull off the cigarette Snafu had given him, the same brand he’d smoked during the war but miles less stale, and handed it over when Snafu snapped his fingers in his face.

“Don’t be bratty.” He said, but his words got lost to the din of the bar and Snafu didn’t react, just turned away as he took a drag off his reappropriated cigarette. His eyes scanned the bar, as huge and eerie in his face as they’d ever been, watchful in a way that was instantly familiar. Eugene finished his drink, and ordered two more, shoved one into Snafu’s hand just so their fingers would touch. 

Snafu’s fingers were cold against his own, condensation slick, and his smile was too small and too private for the people packed in next to them. Eugene wanted to have him just to himself, and took a gulp of his drink to keep his hands from straying where they wanted to.

“So d’you like it?” Snafu shouted, close enough to his ear to raise goosepimples along his neck. “The music?” Eugene shrugged one shoulder, nodded. He didn’t know how to tell Snafu that he hadn’t come to New Orleans for the jazz, really. Snafu just grinned, warm and pleased, and the press of his shoulder against Eugene’s made the half-lie a little more worth it. 

They ended up in some darkened corner of the room, better to press their heads together and talk. Talking about nothing, about work and school, Snafu supplying the drinks despite the poor state of his apartment and his apparent poverty. Eugene let him lest he embarrass him, accepted every too-strong drink he pressed into his hand, regular like clockwork. They drank until the room blurred around them, until Eugene was leaning into Snafu like he had nothing to worry about. Smoked until their throats ached, until Eugene’s grin was a sloppy thing slapped across his face, Snafu’s thumb pressed fondly to the corner of his mouth. 

“‘S go home.” Eugene slurred, and Snafu’s thumb slipped from his mouth to his jaw, to graze his adam’s apple, the hollow of his throat. The wash of warmth that followed the path of his touch was probably largely the alcohol’s fault, but that fact didn’t stop Eugene from swaying boldly into Snafu’s front.

“Hey.” Snafu murmured, mouth to his temple as he spoke. His hands came to grip around Eugene’s wrists, and then there was distance between them, Eugene’s nose no longer full of Snafu’s smell of sweat and cigarettes. Snafu was grinning, that stupid showy smile, “None’a that here.”

In the back of his mind, Eugene was very aware that he was pushing the limits of what he and Snafu could get away with in this bar. Sure, it was closely packed enough that they way they had been leaning into each other all night was vaguely innocuous, and it was dark enough that anyone could miss Snafu’s lingering touches, but. There was always that _but_. It was enough to sober him a little, and he leaned back all by himself, fixed the collar of his shirt and scowled a little aimlessly in the general direction of Snafu’s mocking grin.

“Alright.” He said, and reached for the dregs of his glass. Snafu batted his hand away easily. “Alright.” He said again, and nodded when Snafu gestured for him to lead the way. “Fine.”

The cobbles were worse navigating them drunk, and this time it was Eugene who was hanging off of Snafu, though not through any want of his own. “Stop pretending you ain’t drunk too.” He grumbled, and Snafu just squeezed his waist, neon light glancing off of his bared teeth and the chain around his neck. New Orleans felt like some ghastly oversaturated funhouse around him, weaving and dipping in a manic kaleidoscope of candy vibrant colours until Eugene had to take a seat on someone’s front step just to hold his head on straight.

“Who’s the drunk one now, Sledgehammer?” Snafu drawled, that treacle slow drip of words that Eugene had missed so badly. He put his forehead to his knees, breathed through his mouth and willed the world to stop tilting. Snafu fetched up against the wall with a grunt, let himself slide to the ground to sit beside Eugene in a loose sprawl. Drunk or not, that was the same. Too much about Snafu was the same, so much that it hurt Eugene’s head when he realised what _wasn’t_ the same. He laughed easier now, his smiles were less feral, he’d lost that hunted air he’d adopted in Okinawa. 

Eugene groaned into his hands, accepted the slap on his back from Snafu as penance. “This is all your fault.” He mumbled miserably. Snafu laughed wryly, and a cigarette swam into his peripheral a second later. 

“Steady y’stomach.” Snafu said, muffled by the cigarette in his own mouth. Eugene took the proffered smoke, let Snafu light it with trembling hands. _That_ was new. Snafu noticed him clock it, and clenched his hand into a fist with a rueful tilt of his head. The street listed dizzyingly, and Eugene dropped his head back down. 

“I’m gonna throw up.” Eugene breathed, and Snafu rubbed the middle of his back firmly.

“Nah.” He said, quiet and considering. “Smoke your cigarette, Gene.”

Eugene smoked his cigarette. He watched the shoes of people who walked past and he let Snafu rub comforting circles into his back and tried to keep the love he felt rising behind his eyes from spilling over. He could feel it in his throat, tight like tears but less sharp.

“Are you okay?” He croaked, eventually, when the cigarette was ground out into the pavement below him. He didn’t know what else to say. The world was settling now, less like a mad funhouse ride, but the sudden stillness of Snafu’s hand on his back kept his face ducked to his knees. The noise of the streets flooded into the silence between them, and Eugene lost himself in the spinning behind his eyelids and the faint sounds of jazz and drunken people for a moment before Snafu spoke.

“Am I okay?” He asked, and Eugene finally looked up. There was something in Snafu’s tone, something almost-vulnerable and incredulous that made him ache. Snafu was staring at him, brow furrowed and those big pale eyes flitting over his face like he was going to find something there. Maybe he did, because after a second his mouth pulled to the side and he asked, “That what you came back here for? Checkin’ up on me?” The hand that had been shaking was still clenched in a fist, knuckles white and resting on his knee. Eugene stared at it for a long moment, long enough that Snafu snapped, “Not to see me?”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Eugene mumbled, both hands cupped under the side of his face as he gazed up at Snafu, who was scowling off down the street like the cobbles were personally responsible for their conversation. 

“ _No._ ” Snafu said emphatically, and his eyes were hurt when he turned to Eugene. “No, it’s not, Gene.”

Eugene dropped his face back into his hands, head too full up and stuffed full of cotton wool, too drunk, to reply. His mouth, his brain, wouldn’t cooperate, and he felt idiotic for even trying. How was he supposed to express how his worry for Snafu had overridden every modicum of sense he had? How was he supposed to defend his decision to take a train all the way to New Orleans, just to look Snafu in the eyes and make sure he was alive. Five years of radio silence, but maybe he was just at fault as Snafu was. “I wanted to see you too.” He mumbled, the ghost of Snafu’s hand on this waist nagging at him. “Not just to check up.”

Snafu didn’t reply, just pressed his shoulder to Eugene’s arm and tipped his head back against the brick wall behind them. The world moved around them, feet and hands and grinning mouths and open drinks slopping onto the pavement. Eugene was drunk enough that time stretched taffy-slow and unreal, and it could have been years, or minutes, before Snafu asked, “You remember Christmas day?”

“Yeah.” Eugene said, and felt his grin stretch silly and tipsy across his face. “You hated that book I got you.”

“Goddamn stupid thing.” Snafu muttered, a smile in his voice. “Killed his own brother. Who does that?”

“He cared too much.” Eugene said, and watched as a couple drifted by, heads close together. “‘S the only way to keep his brother safe.”

“Imagine living with that.” Snafu murmured, and Eugene smiled to himself. Like either of them wasn’t living with something comparable to George killing his brother. He remembered the sick crack of teeth detaching from rotting gums, and dug his fingers into his palms. “You remember anything else?” Snafu added after a moment, uncharacteristically quiet.

“I remember you kissing me.” Eugene said, and Snafu hummed. It had tasted like plum wine, and Eugene could feel the press of Snafu’s fingers to his jaw like it was yesterday. So surprisingly tender, enough to steal the breath from his lungs. It was the first kiss they’d shared, but not the last. He remembered the way Snafu had held his hand, tight like he’d never let him go, but found himself unable to mention it. “Why?”

Snafu shrugged one shoulder, plucked his pack of his smokes out of his breast pocket to delay his reply. “Jus’ wanted to make sure you remembered.” He muttered, the cigarette in his lips and the alcohol slurring his words.

Eugene straightened up a little, pressed his spine to the brick and willed his head not to list as badly as it wanted to. “Why?” He asked again, and the street spun with the effort to keep his gaze on Snafu’s handsome, dear face. “You miss it?” Bolder words than his sober self could even _think_. Maybe the jazz bar was a better idea than he’d thought.

The corner of Snafu’s mouth quirked, and he struck a match to light his smoke before replying. “Ain’t that obvious?” The flame cast his features inhuman, turned his eye sockets into the dark, staring empty eyes of a skull. Then the flame was extinguished with a practised flick onto the cobbles, and he was familiar again. The same old Snafu from the corner of Eugene’s mind that he’d never been able to clear. Same huge, preternatural eyes, the same bony wrists and nervous fingers. “Thought you were back for the same.” He continued, oblivious to the rush of Eugene’s drunken thoughts.

“Never said I wasn’t.” Eugene said, and hugged his knees to his chest as he met and held Snafu’s gaze. His heart felt huge in his throat, affection blooming in him as he took Snafu in. His full upper lip, the slope of his nose and the way his shirt collar was wrinkled and turned up at the back. He was impish and uncharacteristically sweet in the residual neon glow of the bars, and Eugene had to knot his fingers together in front of him to stop himself from reaching out to touch his face, the stubble on his jaw. 

“Oh, yeah?” Snafu said, a grin creeping across his face. “Had’ta get you drunk to admit it, huh?”

“No good way to say it.” Eugene replied shortly, and rolled his eyes when Snafu laughed. 

“S’pose not.” Snafu said, eyes bright in his face and flitting all over Eugene. “Let’s get outta here.”

Eugene swallowed the the sudden anxiety that rose in his throat, and by the time he took Snafu’s outstretched hand to haul his ass of the steps, all he felt was that anticipation that had burned in him earlier. He thought again, plum wine, gentle fingers, the smell of metal and unwashed hair. He had made, and was making, the right choice.

\----

Snafu’s tiny apartment was dark by the time they stumbled home, and he made no move to turn any lights on, just kicked the door shut with his foot and stepped into the murky darkness with an ease borne of familiarity. Eugene gripped the back of Snafu’s suspenders so he didn’t bump into anything, ignored the quiet huff of a laugh.

“Drink?” Snafu asked, voice like velvet, dropped low in the quiet room. Wordlessly, Eugene shook his head. He could see enough now to move to lean against the rickety kitchen table, completely bare apart from an overflowing ashtray and a few chipped mugs. Eugene pressed the pad of his pinky finger against a triangular chip taken out of the rim of one. Cool, sharp-smooth under his touch. Snafu’s hand wound around his waist, and Eugene glanced away. He had a glass in his hand, a couple fingers of whiskey in the bottom, and Eugene took it from his unresisting hand to place on the table behind him. Snafu watched through his eyelashes, gaze intimate and amused.

“Kiss me.” Eugene breathed, brave in the darkness and with Snafu’s hand warm and familiar against his skin. The dim light caught on Snafu’s teeth as he smiled, and then he pulled Eugene closer into his body and time slipped away, lost to the press of mouths and hands. 

It felt equal parts like a beginning and an ending. A book opening, a chapter closing. Snafu’s mouth on his was the same, the way he nipped at Eugene’s lip just to make him smile into the kiss, the way his hands gripped Eugene’s waist up tight. But, this room, the sound of drunken revellers in the street outside, the relative safety and the thrill of something illicit that they could for once _enjoy_ \- it was new. Eugene tilted Snafu’s head back a little, hands coming to slide home into his curls as Snafu made pleased noises against his mouth. This wasn’t Christmas day, plum wine and a miscalculated gift and the sickly throb of want and fear in the pit of his stomach as he let Snafu’s hands slide under his shirt. 

It was _better_ , and for the first time since he’d woken up alone on a cross country train, Eugene considered that maybe an end wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to him. Snafu mouthed along his jaw, and Eugene let his eyes slip closed, gave himself over to the hands he found himself in again after so long.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! the book they reference is of mice and men, if that's not obvious , and the title is from frank ocean's forrest gump


End file.
